From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 Return-Path: Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org via listexpand id S1750891AbWBBRpV (ORCPT ); Thu, 2 Feb 2006 12:45:21 -0500 Received: (majordomo@vger.kernel.org) by vger.kernel.org id S1750893AbWBBRpU (ORCPT ); Thu, 2 Feb 2006 12:45:20 -0500 Received: from smtp.osdl.org ([65.172.181.4]:43452 "EHLO smtp.osdl.org") by vger.kernel.org with ESMTP id S1750891AbWBBRpU (ORCPT ); Thu, 2 Feb 2006 12:45:20 -0500 Date: Thu, 2 Feb 2006 09:44:26 -0800 (PST) From: Linus Torvalds To: Pierre Ossman cc: Alan Cox , Karim Yaghmour , Filip Brcic , Glauber de Oliveira Costa , Thomas Horsten , linux-kernel Subject: Re: GPL V3 and Linux - Dead Copyright Holders In-Reply-To: <43E23C79.8050606@drzeus.cx> Message-ID: References: <43DE57C4.5010707@opersys.com> <5d6222a80601301143q3b527effq526482837e04ee5a@mail.gmail.com> <200601302301.04582.brcha@users.sourceforge.net> <43E0E282.1000908@opersys.com> <43E1C55A.7090801@drzeus.cx> <1138891081.9861.4.camel@localhost.localdomain> <43E23C79.8050606@drzeus.cx> MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: linux-kernel-owner@vger.kernel.org X-Mailing-List: linux-kernel@vger.kernel.org On Thu, 2 Feb 2006, Pierre Ossman wrote: > > So taking open software and closed hardware and combining it into something > that I cannot modify is ok by you? But you CAN modify the software part of it. You can run it on other hardware. It boils down to this: we wrote the software. That's the only part _I_ care about, and perhaps (at least to me) more importantly, because it's the only part we created, it's the only part that I feel we have a moral right to control. I _literally_ feel that we do not - as software developers - have the moral right to enforce our rules on hardware manufacturers. We are not crusaders, trying to force people to bow to our superior God. We are trying to show others that co-operation and openness works better. That's my standpoint, at least. Always has been. It's the reason I chose the GPL in the first place (and it's the exact same reason that I wrote the original Linux copyright license). I do _software_, and I license _software_. And I realize that others don't always agree with me. That's fine. You don't have to. But I licensed my project under a license _I_ agreed with, which is the GPLv2. Others who feel differently can license under their own licenses. Including, very much, the GPLv3. I'm not arguing against the GPLv3. I'm arguing that the GPLv3 is wrong for _me_, and it's not the license I ever chose. Linus